James Fields, 1882

FIELDS, James T. (1817-1881). Yesterdays with Authors. New Illustrated Edition. Boston: 1882.

An extra-illustrated copy, including numerous letters to the author or his wife from the book's subjects, among them Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Dickens, Leigh Hunt, H. B. Stowe, Browning, Webster, Tennyson, and more; portraits and letters relating to members of the Saturday Club; a Thomas Grey manuscript fragment; and a Napoleon document. The volume includes over 200 additional portraits and plates.

Four volumes, octavo (222 x 149mm). Titles printed in red and black with publisher's device. With approximately 159 engraved portraits, 9 photographic portraits, 60 illustrated plates including landscapes and cityscapes, and 63 autograph items including letters, notes, and poems (some very minor thumbing in volume 1). Brown gilt stamped morocco, spines gilt-tooled in compartments, wide gilt turn-ins, and marbled endpapers (stains on the front board of volume 2). Provenance: George W. Childs (1829–1894; inscribed to) – family members of Anthony Joseph Drexel (1826-1893) – Sotheby's New York, Jun 3, 1997, lot 105.